Fitting in by standing out
One of my favorite podcasts is How I Built This and at the end, Guy Raz always asks:
How much of your success do you attribute to luck, or just hard work?
I love thinking about this. Your words manifest your reality so be careful of what you say (and think). I’ve started to reframe and rethink my lucky career breaks and recognize them to be hard work in preparing for that moment.
I had a bracelet made on Etsy that was a simple metal band with the word FOCUS written on it. I wore it so much that it broke and so I ordered a new one.
Today, I got an email from a company that might be the opposite of Macro-Hard about my work collaboration vs focus time. The emails says this:
23 minutes to refocus? I believe it. So many business productivity books I read constantly preach against multitasking. Our brains can’t and don’t multitask. They switch but the switching doesn’t happen as fast as we’d think or like. In fact, according to the email I got, it takes 23 minutes.
I worked in the same industry for almost 20 years. I had so much legacy and historical knowledge along with long term customer relationships. For hundreds of folks, I was their first Zeiss Calypso basic software trainer. They learned the ropes from me and I felt appreciated. I watched colleagues switch from the manufacturer to the distributor to the customer and I knew who was who in the zoo.
When it was time for me to make a big career shift, I was scared. For the first time in a very long time, I wouldn’t be the one who knew everyone. I wouldn’t have all those “remember when… ” stories. I wouldn’t be the one with the answers anymore.
I shifted from the world of manufacturing and engineering to be an analyst at one of the largest banks in the US. All of a sudden, I was the “new kid.” In fact, they called me an “off the street” hire because I didn’t already come from another bank. I didn’t know how an analyst was “supposed” to act. I didn’t know status quo. I didn’t have preconceived notions. I didn’t know the rules I was supposed to follow.
I knew the basic principles of my job and I went full steam ahead. I was persistent. I asked a lot of questions. I asked for helped. I was eager to learn. I wasn’t afraid to speak up when a process didn’t make sense. It turns out that my attitude was refreshing. It turns out that I was getting more done than other folks. I didn’t create imaginary barriers and I just worked to the best of my ability.
In the end, I learned that even though legacy information is important, sometimes a fresh perspective can be even more respected and appreciated. I put too much emphasis on what I thought was important because I personally didn’t know any other world but the one I was in for so long.
When I was going through a career shift from engineering to banking, I started contacting recruiters. I cold called them. I literally Googled the names of local recruiting firms. I would call the main phone number and just talk to the person that answered the phone. I was desperate. I was uninformed. I had a junky resume. I was taking bad advice from friends instead of experts.
I didn’t know how to talk to recruiters. I told them the truth. I told my story the way I saw it. I’m an engineer. I’m smart. I work hard. I learn fast. They didn’t care. I told them I needed to find a job. I asked for their help. I didn’t understand who paid the recruiters (news flash: not me). I was a fool.
I have a mechanical engineering degree. I’ve coded in six different development languages and built systems end to end including the design through testing. I’ve been a software programming trainer.
I met with a recruiter who couldn’t have been more than 25 years old. He was just as desperate as me. He was new on the job (as so many recruiters are) and wanted to make a sale. He listened to my story then stopped answering my calls. After much persistence, he finally talked to me again. He abruptly told me that I wasn’t technical enough for these banking jobs. What?!
Thankfully that didn’t stop me. When I finally got into banking, I found most of my colleagues weren’t technical at all. My boss had a history degree. I was plenty technical. I just didn’t know how to sell myself properly with my resume and my story. I was going to the recruiters instead of them coming to me.
I had so much to learn in the world of recruiters and contract work.
Tonight, I went to a women’s mentorship networking event. I’ve been attending these type events more and more lately. During the meeting, I made a comment that women should be more transparent with their pay to help other women and that we should always negotiate our salaries.
After the meeting ended, several women rushed up to me wanting to connect to learn how to negotiate. One was a young girl about to graduate college. She asked how to handle answering the question about what to say for previous salary. Another older woman wanted to go back to corporate America after being a business owner for 20 years. She wanted to learn how to navigate that process and she doesn’t know pay scales. A third girl said she was working a contract job and just took the pay they gave her because she didn’t want to sound entitled. What?
When a company interviews you and gives you a job offer, bring it on! They’ve made it clear that they want you. I feel like a broken record:
Ladies, negotiate your worth, not just what you can get. Know your value. Be prepared.
Men who negotiate are considered ambitious. Women who negotiate are considered greedy. — said Caroleen
Good grief. This is so lopsided. The stigma against women wanting more money is wild. I’ve never met a woman who didn’t eat or need a place to live or had bills to pay. Why would a woman need less money than a man? In fact, I was a single mother for thirteen years. I needed MORE money then most men.
Tangent: How many single fathers do you know? I don’t have the statistic but I’m guessing in most cases of divorce, the children are with the mother more. Would a single father be considered greedy for negotiating a higher salary? I doubt it. So why would a single mother be considered greedy for negotiating for more money? She is the sole breadwinner. She is the only source of income. Been there, done that. It’s not easy.
Negotiate your worth! You are valued!
As you may have noticed, I’m on a financial kick lately. If you really think about it, when can you ever in your life not be mindful of finances? Money is a part of our lives every.single.day. I read The Millionaire Next Door when I was younger and just recently re-read it. The principles are solid. Millionaires are those that have a lot of money but don’t necessarily “appear” rich. It lead me to another book in the series, The Next Millionaire Next Door which was written by the original author’s daughter after her father’s unexpected death in a car accident. This book highlights that indicators of success and potential wealth were two traits:
Resilience and Perseverance
For some reason, it made me want to share this C story about my time as a freshman in college when a teacher told me I had a learning disability.
My first semester in college, I was incorrectly enrolled in Math 1241 which at my school was Calculus I. If you notice on the image of my actual transcript, I had already received Advanced Placement (AP) credit for the class along with the next class, Calculus II. When I told the counselor at registration that I didn’t need to take the class, they blew me off and said that was the highest math I could enroll in my first semester as a freshman (this is wrong).
So not knowing any better, I begrudgingly went to class day after day. The teacher was a grad student. We fought over her methods and she already didn’t care for me for arguing with her. When I got back my first test, she gave me a D. She said that I didn’t solve the problems correctly even though I had. She told me that she watched me take my test and could tell I was slow. Because I had a learning disability (according to her), I should visit our disability services department at school to ask for more time during tests.
I was shocked. I went to my engineering professor and told him the story. He immediately looked up my account and said, why are you in that class? You’ve already placed out of it and the next one!
He set up an appointment with my math teacher, her boss – the math dean, and me. We walked across campus together and discussed what happened. My math teacher sat there and argued that I should still take the class for my benefit knowing she’d just destroy my grade.
My engineering professor insisted I be taken out of the class immediately even though it would result in a permanent Withdrawal (W) on my transcript. At the time, I was so young and had just started college. I didn’t know what was happening but I knew to trust my engineering professor over that math teacher.
The next semester, I was the only freshman in my differential equations math class. I had the highest average all semester and was able to exempt out of my final exam because my grade was so high. I then went on to graduate with a 4.0 GPA in mechanical engineering.
I was heavily involved in an engineering mentoring program and I told this story to every underclassman I mentored. It’s amazing how one bad scenario could have impacted my entire college experience so much because it happened so early. I could have gotten discouraged. I could have felt inadequate. I was already one of the few females in engineering school. I could have felt out of place and quit school. So much could have happened to have one teacher stand so strongly against me.
Thankfully, I had support from my engineering professor who was also my Statics teacher later in engineering school. He saw what was happening and he made sure I wasn’t impacted permanently.
Now I look back at that transcript and see how insignificant that W is but how glaring it would be to get a D for a class that I had already passed?
It’s a weird story but it reminds me of being resilient. For those that have not had conflict or difficulties in life don’t get to flex this muscle much. I think this is a trait that serves well not just in financial aspects but work, life, and relationships. How you recover from adversity may be more important than the actual adversity itself.
This is a long story so bear with me. There is a point to it. TLDR folks – skip to the bottom!
COTU 1: 300 East
For years, I called a local restaurant, 300 East, the Center of the Universe (COTU). I rarely went there but when I did, inevitably, I ran into someone I knew.
COTU 2: Caribou Coffee on East Blvd
Just down the road, I started visiting Caribou Coffee. Then I noticed that I would run into obscure people that I knew but never saw anywhere in town there. That became the new COTU.
COTU 3: Starbucks on East Blvd << Notice a trend of location?
One day, I wanted to try something new so instead of turning right on East Blvd, I went straight across and stopped at Starbucks. From there, it became my new COTU. I made SO many friends there. Yes, I have very close amazing friends that I met at Starbucks. If you’re wondering how I made friends at Starbucks, drop a comment and I’ll write a blog on that in itself.
I loved that COTU. I worked there almost everyday. I finished some awesome work projects sitting there. I studied JavaScript, Ruby, C#, and got comfortable using the Terminal there. I blogged, I read, I learned, and made friends. It was one of the most productive and positive things (places) in my life.
For my Too Long Didn’t Read (TLDR) friends:
COTU stands for Center of the Universe and what I nicknamed my favorite coffee shop where I frequently worked remotely.
But then the pendulum swung too far. I loved COTU so much that I started to think that I couldn’t work anywhere else but there. I went there when I needed to be creative, think out of the box, and/or come up with a new solution. I did my best work at COTU. I was productive and creative and I loved the flow I felt there.
Then it became a new kind of constraint. I was afraid to get an office job because I needed to be able to work at COTU. I didn’t want to lose that freedom. I was passing up career opportunities because of this fear.
My friend Michael said, The coffee shop is in your head. Then he pointed at his head. It was like, DUH! You can work anywhere but I didn’t believe him for a few years. I’m a slow learner!
Now, I know, where you work is in your head. I work in an office now. I drive in (very reasonable 20 minute commute) 3 – 5 days/ week. I do have the option to work from home and sometimes I do. But I’ve grown up (sort of). I don’t have to run off to COTU to work anymore. In fact, I recently squatted in the back of a Marriott on their nice outdoor patio and banged out a blog. I can work anywhere and there’s so much freedom to finally understanding that.